Eye of the Storm
by Legendgrass
Summary: Despite their better judgment, the Best Friend Quad decides to take the shortcut to the Crimson Waste — by flying over the storm-shrouded Beast Island. When things go wrong, Adora finds that beasts aren't the only problem she'll face on Beast Island.
1. Struck

"_Beast Island?_"

Bow's voice came out a lot louder and higher-pitched than he'd intended. It bounced off the pastel walls of Adora's bedroom and echoed sharply back to where they sat, making Adora and Glimmer wince. The archer pulled a face and lowered his voice in redress. "Sorry."

Adora barely heard him. She was leaning forward in her cross-legged position to gape at Glimmer in similar disbelief. "Beast Island?" she repeated, more quietly than Bow but with just as much horror. "We can't go there. It's certain death!"

Across their little circle from Adora, Glimmer huffed. "We're not going to—"

"Shadow Weaver said there are monsters there that can scorch the flesh from your bones just by looking at you!" Adora blurted out as if Glimmer hadn't spoken. Her blue eyes were wide and wild as she hopped to her feet and turned to pace her shiny bedroom floor in a tight, anxious circuit, relating: "—and carnivorous plants that eat the flesh off your bones if you get too close. And sand pits that suck the flesh from your bones when you fall in. And—"

"_No one _is getting their flesh removed from their bones!" Glimmer cried, freezing Adora mid-conspiratorial-gesture. In the pause that followed, the small, sturdy princess made stern eye contact with each of her friends in turn as if to make sure she'd gotten her point across. "and we _aren't _going to Beast Island."

"We're not?" Adora's face went blank for a moment before she broke out into relieved laughter. "Oh, good, because for a second there I thought—"

"We're flying over it."

"_What?_" Bow and Adora shrieked in unison.

Glimmer closed her eyes and took a deep, patient breath. When she opened them again, they were resolute. "A shortcut over Beast Island is the fastest way to get to the Crimson Waste from Bright Moon," she explained. "We have to do it."

Bow was the first to register her words. "Glimmer, don't you think maybe the longer way would be safer?" he asked tentatively, rubbing his neck and raising his nervous eyes to her hardened ones. "The storms over Beast Island are almost as bad as the beasts themselves. If we get caught in one of those things, it could be the end of us."

"We don't have _time_ to go the longer way!" Glimmer protested. "We have to figure out what this message is pointing to before the Horde makes another move against us. It could make a huge difference in the war." She smacked her fist into her palm for emphasis.

"Or, it might just lead to some old First Ones landmark," Bow pointed out. Then he withered under the princess's glare and quickly changed tack, "I'm sorry, Glimmer, but it won't help anyone if we get lost out there and never make it back. It's too dangerous."

"The Crimson Waste is dangerous too!" Glimmer arguing, throwing out her arms. "This whole trip is dangerous. But we're soldiers. That's just the life we live. What makes some stupid monster storm any different from the rest of it?"

"Glimmer—"

"She's right," Adora cut in unexpectedly. When both Bow and Glimmer turned their attention to her with mild surprise, she straightened her stance and set her jaw. "Bow, listen," she began, facing him directly, "No one knows the Horde like I do. I know Hordak will be furious about all the victories we've won lately. And I know it's only a matter of time before he sends something bigger, meaner and nastier than ever our way." Her two friends were soberly silent, knowing the truth behind her words. She looked at them each steadily before continuing, "Whatever chance we have to get an advantage before then, I say we take it. And right now that means getting to the Crimson Waste and figuring out this Serenia thing as fast as possible." She paused to swallow hard. "Even if that means going over Beast Island."

There was a brief, tense silence while her words sank in. Then Bow hung his head and sighed, "Okay."

It was obvious that the archer was disappointed to be overridden once again, but he knew just as well as the others that they needed this breakthrough. The girls still felt a stab of guilt at the look on his face. Glimmer reached to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Before she could touch him, Bow suddenly raised his head again and his eyes were flashing. "—but you both have to promise me something first."

* * *

"_This_ is what you call 'storm safety'?"

Glimmer spluttered and shook her head fiercely to clear the rain from her face. The effort proved futile as a gust of wind sent a second wave smacking into her instantly. She groaned and yanked her dripping purple raincoat tighter around her, scanning the space beneath them for any sign of a landmark. Their little entourage was virtually lost, as all of their surroundings were obscured by massive sheets of falling water and dark, roiling clouds. The goggles Bow had made them all wear were similarly splashed with water and thus no help at all. She-Ra sat at the rear of their party on Swift Wind's back and held the Shield of Protection over their heads, but the whipping wind made even that a small comfort.

Bow raised his hands from where they'd been clamped around Glimmer's waist and waved them in front of her face. They were swathed in thick, elbow-length rubber gloves. "Rubber insulates against electricity!" he shouted over the howl and spray of the storm. He pointed to Glimmer's matching pair and said, "If we get struck by lightning, you'll thank me."

"You don't think _She-Ra _would be the one to get struck, since, I don't know, she's waving around a _big metal weapon_?" Glimmer hollered back. Almost on cue, a finger of lightning crackled down not far off Swift Wind's right flank, and Glimmer scrambled to cling to his mane for dear life.

Behind them, Adora's upraised shield faltered. "That's not very comforting, Glimmer," she pointed out.

Glimmer's teeth were clenched together too hard for her to answer. Instead, Bow sighed explosively and dropped his gloved arms. "Listen, this seemed like a much better idea in my head!"

"You're not the only one," Glimmer grated out tightly. As lightning flashed again and thunder concussed on its heels, she bent over and pressed her head fearfully into Swift Wind's colorful locks.

"Oh, no." The foreboding note in She-Ra's voice made them all jerk to attention, panic rising.

"What is it?" Bow demanded, reaching over his shoulder for his bow and staring out into the clouds for whatever threat she had spotted. He did a good job of suppressing the waver in his words. That was Bow: comically cowardly until it mattered.

When lightning struck again, closer, it illuminated She-Ra's arm where she pointed down and into the sea of angry clouds. It was there that Bow first spied movement.

Looking down as the rain fell was disconcerting, as if the droplets were actually motionless and the observer was the one who was moving, flying backward and upward at an alarming rate. But through it, the archer could see a long black shape below them, snaking and sliding along the backdrop of the clouds. It was difficult to track when the lightning was not live, but its presence was unmistakable.

"What is that?" he asked nervously, reaching for an arrow.

She-Ra's shield suddenly glittered and warped and in a show of light transformed into the Sword of Protection. Ready for a fight. The change did not make the others feel better. "You want my guess?" the warrior said. "Beasts."

"Okay, maybe I should have let you tell us about all those flesh-eating creatures Shadow Weaver mentioned," Glimmer whined, summoning a ball of sparkling energy in one hand. "I'd rather know what we're going up against."

A series of lightning strikes flickered in quick succession and with a shock they realized that the dark shape was suddenly much closer.

Bow and Glimmer screamed.

As the light died this time, they could still make out the form of the approaching beast. Its body was long and snakelike—or perhaps wormlike—and ribbed with darker-colored plating on its back. Its many, different-sized eyes were glowing wicked blue as they locked onto Swift Wind and his riders. It propelled itself erratically through the air with a pair of leathery gray wings that seemed much too small for its girth. Its round, gaping mouth was ringed with layers of teeth and guarded by four sharp mandibles that reached out for the Squad menacingly. It was angry, and it was coming closer.

"Watch out!" Bow shrieked as the beast gyrated up toward them from below. He pointed his arrow down at it, but he couldn't get a clear shot for the poor angle.

Adora noticed and called, "Swift Wind!"

"I see 'em," the pale steed assured. "Hang on!"

The pegacorn angled his wings sharply and dropped into a steep bank, twisting midair to bring the Squad directly opposite the worm-beast as it trundled by. The move opened up a shot for Bow, who took it with absolute confidence. The arrow hissed through the rain and buried itself between two armor plates behind the creature's head. As it let out an ear-piercing roar of pain and turned its course away, Bow pumped his fist in the air. "Yeah-hah, go Swift Wind!" he celebrated.

The winged horse leveled out and began angling up in a long curve to bring them back to their original altitude. "Did you ever doubt me?" he bragged, tossing his mane.

"That was close," Adora warned.

"Yeah, but we're almost through," Glimmer put in, breaking into a relieved grin. She sat up over Swift Wind's neck and pointed ahead of them, where a gap had opened up in the threatening clouds. "Look! I can see the edge of the Crimson Wastes through that—"

_ZAP!_

Blinding white.

Deafening noise.

Open air.

They were falling.

* * *

Bow woke first. He jerked into awareness and immediately began shrieking as he realized he was plummeting through the clouds toward an uncertain fate. His fist was still clenched white-knuckled around his bow, which he was thankful for. That was about the only good thing he could think of.

Through goggles still spattered with mist, he could see a limp, pink and purple shape careening toward the ground off his left side. "Glimmer!" he cried, although the wind snatched his voice away instantly. He flailed to right himself in the air and started trying to paddle toward her as if the clouds could be moved by hands alone.

It was frustratingly slow, if not totally ineffective. Bow made a fierce noise of consternation as his friend remained just out of reach. As he turned his gaze downward to judge just how long they had before an unfortunate end, his eyes landed on a flash of white and gold further down.

"Adora!"

The only thing worse than one of his friends falling to her doom was _two _of his friends falling to their dooms.

And of course, here they were.

Bow's eyes were watering behind his goggles and it wasn't from the rushing wind. He could see slivers of the ground below through the clouds, and it didn't look soft. He found himself beginning to hyperventilate as intense fear closed a fist around his heart. His friends were about to die. He was about to die with them. What could he _do? _It wasn't like he had wings! He couldn't just swoop on down and—

"Wings!" he shouted in sudden realization. Where was Swift Wind?

He turned over so that he was staring up into the falling rain and flickering lightning and scanned the sky for signs of the winged horse. The clouds were so dark it was difficult to make out anything beyond a few yards. Bow was sorely tempted to curse, an activity he _never _indulged in. Shouldn't that stupid horse be standing out like a sore thumb with his rainbow wings and golden horn? So _where_ was he?

Bow heard him before he saw him.

"Fire! Fire—on _me!_ Holy living Light Hope, I'm _on fire_!"

Bow twisted in the air to follow the noise. There—not above him, but almost horizontal to him flew Swift Wind. Or, rather, _fell _Swift Wind. The pegacorn was spiralling in tight, erratic circles toward the ground, flapping his wings frantically but not actually catching any air because he was presumably more worried about putting out the fire that was _on _him. His right wing was actually smoldering and trailing smoke. Bow could see open flame licking at the primary feathers at its tip, unfazed by the rainstorm going on around it.

"Swift Wind!" Bow cried at the top of his lungs.

"Huh?" The horse stopped his hysterics long enough to glance in the direction of his voice. Coincidentally, he also forgot about the fire long enough to instinctively spread his wings in a glide. "Oh, hey, Bow!" he greeted once he'd recognized the archer. "I'm on fire!"

"Freaking _save us!_" Bow screamed, throwing out his arms to indicate the unconscious forms of his friends and the approaching Very Hard Ground™.

Swift Wind followed his motion and apparently noticed the severity of the Squad's predicament for the first time. "Adora! Glimmer!" he cried, then shook out his mane in distress. "Oh man, oh man, how could I be so blind? I'm coming, guys!"

He stroked his still-burning wings valiantly in the direction of his friends, propelling himself through the rain-thick air faster than Bow could fire an arrow. He collided with the archer first, and Bow breathed a massive sigh of relief at the feeling of something solid beneath him. He clung to Swift Wind's neck with one arm and raised the other to point out ahead.

"Glimmer; she got knocked out!" he yelled, indicating the pink and purple body which was plummeting nearest them. "She can't teleport!"

"On it. To the rescue!" Swift Wind bellowed with another dramatic toss of his head and folded in his wings to dive toward Glimmer's form. Bow latched both arms around the horse's neck as he picked up speed, the resulting wind turning the rain into painful pinpricks against his skin. He squinted through spotty goggles to keep a bead on Glimmer's shape as they neared, and when Swift Wind swooped beneath her, he clamped his legs tight around the horse's flanks and reached up with his free hand and…

"Got her!" he cheered as his fist closed on Glimmer's raincoat and he dragged her falling form onto Swift Wind's back with him. Her dead weight was a comfort in his arms.

Bow's relief didn't last long, though. Swift Wind let out a laugh of victory, and his next words were: "Great! Now where's Adora?" and the weight of the situation came crashing back. They weren't out of the woods yet.

Bow scanned the sky again. The ground was coming up fast. Sweat beaded on his brow underneath the layer of rainwater. Then— "There!" He spotted her white and gold colors against the backdrop of the clouds and pointed urgently.

Swift Wind turned his wings to angle down toward her, but abruptly he was buffeted back. Bow barely kept his balance and his hold on Glimmer at the jolt. "What is it?" he cried to the pegacorn, who began flapping frantically, but no amount of effort was making any headway. He seemed suspended in the air as if by some dark magic. Bow glanced down again at She-Ra and felt his heart rising into his throat. There wasn't time!

"The wind!" Swift Wind panicked, twisting this way and that to try and find a way that was not sabotaged by the crosswind. As he moved, he ended up turned flankwise to his falling companion, and Bow suddenly had an opening.

"I've got it!" he called with newfound vigor, rushing to sling Glimmer more securely across Swift Wind's neck so that his hands were free, reaching for his bow.

He whipped it out in a second and nocked an arrow, and in the blink of an eye it was flying after She-Ra's receding form. Halfway to its target, the arrowhead split and a web of slender ropes sprung out in its place, trailing a single lifeline behind, which Bow grabbed. The net spun through the tumultuous air and careened into She-Ra with enough force to jerk Bow off-balance, but the archer kept his grip and Swift Wind quickly corrected beneath him.

He and the winged horse both heaved sighs of relief as the net bundled neatly around the warrior's falling body, slowing her descent and tethering her to them. "Yeah-hah!" Bow celebrated, wiping the dampness from his brow and then patting Swift Wind's neck appreciatively. They'd done it! His friends were safe! Now all they had to do was—

A screech rattled their eardrums.

A very loud, very angry screech that could only have come from a huge, pincer-rimmed mouth.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Bow tried very hard again to keep a curse from erupting from his lips.

It tore out of the clouds much closer than any of them expected. One second the stormy clouds were roiling unbroken and the next, the giant worm-beast was bursting through the tatters and careening toward them, mouth open and layers of teeth sawing at the air.

"Go, _go!_" Bow shrieked to Swift Wind, but the horse was already balking away from the sudden threat. He fell back into an unplanned loop that nearly sent Bow out of his seat, and the archer cried out with the effort of securing Glimmer with one arm and She-Ra with the other and holding onto Swift Wind with his legs. The earth spun head over heels as they flipped and for an instant gravity ceased to exist. Bow looked up—down—_whatever, _to see She-Ra opposite him, the rope taut between them like the spoke of a wheel where he was the center and she was the rim—

—and then she wasn't.

The beast had missed Swift Wind and his cargo but the horse's maneuver had unwittingly put Bow's tether right in its path, and the creature barrelled right into it without pause. Its ugly teeth sheared through and suddenly the rope was slack in his hands.

Bow's heart stopped.

"_Adora!" _The violence of his cry tore his throat with the word.

Swift Wind came back around, desperately stroking with his wings, but it was too late.

Bow had a perfect, terrible view of She-Ra disappearing through the clouds.


	2. Cut

Adora woke screaming.

She lurched upright and immediately regretted it as her spine protested and her head throbbed as if it had been battered by a heavy blunt object. Her vision went briefly fuzzy, and she braced her hands against the ground to steady herself. She felt like vomiting.

Where was she?

Before she dared subject her head to taking a look around, she reached out with her other senses. First of all, it was hot. Really hot. Secondly, she could feel dry, dusty earth beneath her fingertips. It shifted like sand, but not like the sand of the Mystacor beaches. Something about it was sharper and harsher. Wilder.

She could hear rustling, as of the wind through leaves, but it wasn't the same sound as in the Whispering Woods. Where the wind didn't rustle, it whistled, low and foreboding. There must have been channels or passes nearby where it was concentrated to high speeds.

The rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and Adora grimaced as she remembered:

The fierce crack of lightning. The instant concussion that seemed to split her eardrums. Her heart rising into her throat as she lost her grip on Swift Wind and then…

Then, nothing.

_Then, this, _she supposed.

But what exactly was _this_? They'd been heading to the Crimson Waste. Glimmer had shouted that she saw it ahead, and then they'd been zapped. Had they made it to their destination, by some favor of fate? Or…

Or had they gone down over Beast Island?

That thought made Adora snap her eyes open immediately. The sunlight burned and stabbed her retinas, but she figured it was a pain preferable to being torn apart by beasts while she was unawares. She squinted against the violent rays of the sun and looked around her as she was trained to do; analyzing her surroundings.

The first thing she noticed was that she was in a crater. A deep, sandy, vaguely She-Ra sized crater, and that realization brought the events of the past—what, hour? Day? Few minutes? She didn't know how much time had passed—rushing back to her again with all the force of that fateful lightning strike that had put her here. With the memory came a crushing weight of worry. Were Bow and Glimmer okay? Was Swift Wind? Had they escaped the blast, or had they crash-landed like she had? If it was the latter…she looked around at her crater again and felt cold dread settle in her chest. Not everyone had the resilience of She-Ra.

She had to hope that they were safe, one way or another.

But if they were, that raised the question: why hadn't they come and found her yet? Surely her friends would have mounted a search for her. Surely Swift Wind must have been able to sense her. Surely…

Her thoughts broke off as her eyes fell on a gleaming object lying a few yards outside the rim of her crater. _The sword!_ she thought with a gasp of relief. At least she wasn't defenseless, here…wherever she was.

As she pushed herself to her feet, slowly, painfully, with a haze of black spots filling her vision, she gave her surroundings another once-over. Her crater was in the middle of a stretch of sloping ground which curved around on one side to form a rocky, jagged ridge covered in twisted black trees (thank Etheria she hadn't landed there) and on the other a deep canyon (there either). She could see more ridges and canyons beyond that one, carved haphazardly into the face of the earth as if a giant She-Ra had taken a god-sized Sword of Protection to it. They were formed of dusky red-gray rock which flared into orange under the glare of the sun, and was speckled throughout with shards of white that almost looked like…

_Bone, _Adora realized hollowly. _Oh, no._

So this was Beast Island. She'd heard stories of it when she was younger, of course; a healthy fear of punishment was one of the first values taught the aspiring Horde soldiers. The highlights of the stories were usually the deadly, angry, flesh-consuming beasts that were the island's namesake, but once or twice she'd heard mention of the place's more subtle horrors—including the bones. 'Bones everywhere,' Shadow Weaver had said once. 'In the ground, in the rocks, in the trees. Like part of the island itself.'

A shudder went through her. She fell to her knees, which had gone wobbly, as soon as she reached the sword. It was lodged blade-first in the dirt and covered in a layer of reddish dust.

_How long have I been here?_ Adora wondered not for the first time. Then she gripped the hilt of the sword and coaxed it loose of the ground, breathing a sigh of relief once its comforting weight rested in her hand. She looked down at the stone in its hilt, polished the dust off with her sleeve, and watched as the sunlight played across it when she tilted it to and fro. _And how long until I escape?_

She trusted in all that was good that her friends were looking for her. But if they weren't…

_Water,_ she thought, remembering her basic survival training (perfunctory, since no one really expected a Horde soldier to spend much time away from the Fright Zone, but better than nothing). That was her first priority if she was to be stuck here for any length of time. She could already feel the dryness of her throat beneath the film of dust that stuck there with every breath, and the slickness of sweat beneath her shirt.

She took a deep breath and tried not to cough on it before hauling herself to her feet, weight braced on her sword. When her head went light again and her spine protested worse than before, she wondered briefly whether turning into She-Ra might give her some relief. She shook off the thought just as fast. She was strong enough to go without. She-Ra wasn't there to make her life easier. She wasn't the answer to all of her problems, like people always wanted to believe of her, Adora thought with a touch of bitterness. She-Ra was a last resort.

Adora was strong without her.

So she breathed steadily until she could stand without swaying, and then she struck off down the slope into the nearest slot canyon. If there was fresh water anywhere on this nightmare of an island, it would likely be at the bottom of one of those. She hoped.

The sun beat down on her head as she walked, as it was currently directly above her in the sky. If it was noon…that meant she'd been out of it for at least two hours—maybe closer to three, depending on how long they had been in the air before they hit the storms (it was hard to judge time from Swift Wind's back). Shouldn't that have been long enough for her friends to find her, if they were searching? Shouldn't Swift Wind have gotten a bead on her or the sword a long time ago?

The truth was, they should have.

The more Adora thought about it, the harder it became to stay optimistic. So she tried not to think about it. Which ended up making her think about it more.

Adora felt like hitting something, just to vent all her fear and frustration and despair. The only problem was, everything around her was literally rock-hard and she couldn't afford to hurt herself any more if she was going to be stuck here for—

No, don't think like that.

She let out a long, sharp sigh between her teeth. At least she had a goal to distract her some marginal amount. She needed to find water, and the quicker she found it, the better. Her vision was beginning to look a little _off _the longer she walked—a little distorted around the edges, like she was looking through a spyglass, or through a window that was slightly warped. Not a good sign.

Plus, her back and head were hurting like a mother with every step due to her recent graceless plummet from the sky. Her feet were growing sore fast with the effort of trying to step in a way that didn't hurt. As much as she wanted to prove to herself that she was strong enough to survive on her own, as herself, the prospect of falling back on She-Ra form was looking more and more tempting. _Not yet,_ she told herself sternly. _Only if I have to._

She was tired of feeling like she was useless without her divine form. She was tired of being treated like the weaker, younger sidekick to the all-capable juggernaut that was She-Ra. She was tired of being second best to—to _herself._

_Is this what Catra felt like for all those years?_

Adora shoved away that thought fast. She didn't need Catra on her mind; not when she already had so much to worry about. Her goal was survival; that's what she had to concentrate on. Not her old best friend-turned-enemy who she longed to reconcile with—her with her eyes like mismatched gemstones and her body as strong and quick as a whip and that tempting smirk with so many layers it just—

_Stop! _she scolded herself mentally. Catra should not be on her mind. Not anymore. She had attacked Bright Moon and kidnapped her friends and left Adora to die and poisoned her with a First Ones murder-virus and…and begged her to come home and danced with her at Princess Prom and let her escape the Horde's clutches when she went to rescue her friends and…

_I _can't _get you out of my mind. _Even when Catra wasn't around—_especially _when Catra wasn't around—the complicated catgirl dominated Adora's thoughts. Why should she have expected it to be any different here? Here, where she was alone with her thoughts. Where she was alone with herself. Alone except—

A roar shook the canyon walls.

* * *

"Swift Wind? Swift Wind, are you all right? Talk to us! Swift Wind!"

Bow and Glimmer knelt over the crumpled shape of She-Ra's trusty pegacorn, their eyes wide with worry and empathy. They had been calling and shaking and prodding the fallen horse for the better part of an hour and though they could see his flank rising and falling with steady breaths, they had gotten no other response.

Swift Wind's previously smoldering wing was now extinguished but charred and blackened; the worst on his colorful primaries. Bow knew enough about the mechanics of flight to doubt that the horse would be flying straight for a while after this, if at all. That wasn't the worst part, though. From where he and Glimmer sat, they could see a glimpse of Swift Wind's left foreleg curled beneath his body, and it was definitely damaged.

When they had come spiraling out of the air toward the surface of Beast Island, Swift Wind had been too busy trying to evade the angry worm-beast to pick out a choice landing spot. He had done the best he could to find somewhere safe and defensible, but the closest thing at the time had been a big copse of trees—not ideal. He had saved them from the beast, for now, but crashed pretty hard when they met the trees. His leg was the result.

And now they were here: safe for now, but stuck. Together, but grounded. Grounded and injured. Injured and vulnerable. Vulnerable on Beast Island.

Plus, none of them knew where Adora was.

This was the worst predicament they'd gotten into yet.

Bow sent Glimmer a heavy, somber glance, and the look in her brown eyes told him that she was thinking the same thing.

"We'll be okay, Bow," she told him. There was not a trace of genuine optimism in her voice, but it was made up for by the fierce determination that hardened her features. _We'll _make _it be okay, _she seemed to be saying.

Bow needed to hear that. "I know," he said. He gave his best friend a tight, forced smile of appreciation, but it didn't last long before he sighed and lowered his eyes back to Swift Wind. "It's just…so much went wrong so fast and I'm worried about Swift Wind and I'm worried about Adora. Glimmer, what if she—"

"She's fine," Glimmer cut him off before he could finish that thought. When he looked at her again, her jaw was set but there were tears in her eyes. "She has to be fine," she repeated, voice wavering. "She's She-Ra. She's _Adora._ She _has _to be fine." The more she said it, the less they believed it. Bow felt a hollow pit in his stomach.

_What if she's not?_

"She has to be," Glimmer repeated weakly, as much to convince herself as to reassure Bow, but they both knew it wasn't that certain. Nothing was, here on Beast Island.

Bow saw the moment that Glimmer lost control of her tears and they spilled over onto her cheeks, accompanied by a light sob, and he wrapped her in his arms. She leaned against him and they clung to each other over Swift Wind's unconscious body, mourning a loss that they weren't even sure was true.

"We'll find her," he promised her with more strength than he really felt, "and she'll heal Swift Wind and we'll be out of here before you know it." He tightened his hold around Glimmer and they could do nothing but hope.

_We'll find you, Adora._

* * *

Adora was running for her life.

There was a beast on her tail, and she hadn't waited around long enough to discover what it looked like, but she could hear its snarling, salivating breaths coming from behind her, way too close for comfort. Its heavy footsteps crunched and cracked along the ground as if large claws were tearing into the rock beneath.

Adora's own steps sent arcs of pain up her legs and into her back, but she couldn't afford to slow. The Sword of Protection was in her hand but it felt like more a burden than a comfort right now. Her pulse pounded in her ears over the sound of the savage creature behind her and her breath rasped in her dry throat. She scanned the canyon walls around her for some kind of escape route as she ran. Nothing so far—just red stone and steep faces on all sides. The only place she could go was forward, and she could only hope that the ravine would not run out.

_Canyons—great for finding water, _she thought, and even her mind's voice was out of breath, _not for escaping beasts. _She'd effectively trapped herself in this narrow slot and now she couldn't find a way out. She imagined she could feel the beast's hot, putrid breath on the back of her neck as it gained on her.

Or maybe that was real.

Adora ran harder. Her breath came faster. Still no sanctuary presented itself along her path.

She was getting very near to using that last resort.

_If I die, at least spare my friends! _she supplicated she wasn't sure who. God? The universe? Light Hope? The spirit of She-Ra? It didn't matter to her as long as someone answered. _Protect them when I couldn't,_ she pleaded miserably. Yet again, she failed. Yet again, she was nowhere to be found when her loved ones needed her most. Yet again—

She slipped.

Sand dug into her chin and sprayed into her nostrils as she landed face-first on the canyon floor. Pain exploded in her head. The Sword of Protection spun out of her hand. The beast was coming; she could feel the wind of its approach; she could hear the thud and skid of its huge footsteps and its teeth snapping for her flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt sure death was here. _I'm sorry, _was the last thing she thought, without knowing to whom. All her friends' faces were crowded into her mind in the same instant and the pressure of it was like a crushing blow to her chest, like—

The beast was on her. It thundered up to her and roared its victory and spattered her with disgusting spittle and—

It slid past on its own momentum in a rush of sand and flailing limbs.

Adora felt her heart leap into her throat. This was it, her chance from providence. She had seconds before it was back on her, but that was enough. She scrambled to all fours and whipped her head up and took in the sight of the beast and her surroundings all at once:

It was a massive, four-limbed, hairy rust-colored creature with a leathery face dominated by a gaping pair of nostrils, its feral eyes only green pinpricks in comparison. Its mouth was open and drooling at the scent of meat and long ivory fangs poked out to curve over its slack lower lip. Big ape-like hands with nails like claws were grasping for her.

Behind it was a canyon wall just the same as all the others: red-brown and littered with bone fragments, except—

Between the creature's shaggy legs, deep in the cliff wall, was a passage. It was small and low to the ground and overhung by a ridge and if Adora hadn't fallen she never would have seen it. She thanked the heavens once again. She was weak with relief—or maybe from exertion.

Her sword lay between her and the beast. The beast was regaining its senses. If she was going to act, she had to do it fast.

_Should have gone She-Ra, _she thought suddenly and shamefully. Too late for that now.

Adora dug the balls of her feet into the sand and bunched her muscles and used all of her strength to propel herself forward into a desperate, insane dive.

She closed her fingers round the hilt of the Sword of Protection as she sprung over it in midair. The touch of its cool metal hilt shocked her with a tangible shot of magic.

She lifted the sword from the dirt as she tipped herself into a somersault, barely rolling safely by the beast's lashing claws before coming up on one knee just beneath the thing's tree-trunk legs and bringing the blade up in an arc—a wide swing that slashed the creature's hamstrings and sent it crashing, howling, to the dirt as Adora fled into the opening in the cliff.

Its sounds of agony followed her into the dark passage, echoing off the stone walls straight into her mind. Adora would have raised her hands to her ears to block it out, but she was intent on crawling away as quickly as she could.

The passage was dark except for a point of light at each end—ends not too far away from one another, if her dehydrated brain was telling her the truth. It was cool and damp and shadowy in between. It was also very narrow, she found as she had to force her broad shoulders through a tight gap between the rocks. The seam of her jacket tore at the friction. But she could manage. She had no other choice.

Her head was pounding even worse than before from all her running and scrambling. Her ears rang and she didn't know if it was from the beast's echoing roars or her own body punishing her. Her white shirt was soaked through with her sweat. Her throat was so dry that it hurt to breathe.

It occurred to her that she should probably take her jacket off. When she moved to do so, though, her hands felt heavy and clumsy. Her muscles didn't want to exert themselves even the amount that it took to shrug the garment off and secure it around her waist with her belt.

_I'm not going to make it,_ she thought for the first time in perhaps her whole life. She sat back heavily against the rocky wall and leaned her head back and stared into the dimness opposite her. She almost laughed. After surviving a lightning strike, a fall that would have killed any other human being, and an encounter with a beast of Beast Island, she would die of her own weakness.

_Horde soldiers don't die of dehydration or heat exhaustion or some stupid thing like that, _she told herself, and the thought only made her feel worse. Worse because as much as her mind wanted to push her onward, her pain and fatigue in her body pushed back just as hard. She sat there for a long time just staring and breathing, trying to scrape together enough constitution to will herself to move. She grounded herself by digging her fingers into the cool sand on either side of her legs.

_I can do this,_ she thought for the million-and-first time in her life. She had to think of her mission. She had to think of her goal. She had to think of the people counting on her. She would reunite with Bow, Glimmer, and Swift Wind soon, and when that happened she would need to lead them. She would make it to the Crimson Waste, and there she would find answers. There she would make sense of everything.

She had to keep going; for answers. For her friends. For—

_Catra, _her mind chimed in, _so _unhelpfully.

_Would you stop that? _she hissed at herself. Could she not go five minutes without thinking about that girl? She wasn't even _here! _She wasn't in any way relevant to what Adora was going through right now and yet she was there, always, leaving paw prints and claw marks on Adora's consciousness.

"Damn you, Catra!" Adora rasped into the stillness of the dark passage.

Then a scream met her ears, as though in answer, and it sounded like—like—

"Catra?" she said again.

It _couldn't _be. There was no way. There was no way Catra could be here. Adora's mind was playing tricks on her because it was exhausted and thirsty and—

The voice sounded again and it was _definitely _hers, and that realization alone suddenly gave Adora the willpower to thrust herself off the floor and start crawling down the shadowy passageway with all the speed left in her tired body. Her heart was racing as she got closer to the source of the yells and she could hear, interspersed between them, the clamor of a battle: ringing strikes of Catra's claws on some hard surface and softer thuds of some hard surface on Catra.

"I'm coming," she gasped out even though no one could hear her, her heartbeat pounding in her ears all over again. It didn't even occur to her that Catra might not react well to seeing her; that she might turn on Adora just as soon as side with her against whatever beast was threatening her life, because that's just how Catra was. It didn't occur to her to slow down and think about what she was doing at all as she dragged the Sword of Protection down the passageway behind her, resolved to transform into She-Ra just as soon as she had room, because Catra was out there and her life was in danger and Adora had to save her, because that's just how Adora was.

Before long she broke out into sunlight at the end of the tunnel, and the scene before her hit her like a punch in the gut. She had emerged into another canyon, but this one was wider, bowl-shaped and ringed with caves, and its floor was hard-packed dirt instead of sand. At the wall of the canyon to her left, a massive beast with an iridescent blue beetle shell and six wicked two-pronged claws was scuffling and shrieking at a small dark shape below it. The shape instantly became recognizable as Catra as it ducked and wove between the bug-beast's six legs, infuriating it by dodging its clumsy attacks.

"Catra," escaped Adora's throat hoarsely, more to herself than the actual Catra. The sight of the catgirl just struck her hard. Adora realized that she hadn't seen her enemy in person since the Northern Reach, when…

She didn't want to think about that. What mattered was now. What mattered was that the beetle beast was swinging its forked claws at Catra with a vengeance and Adora knew from experience that though Catra was fast, she couldn't keep up that kind of speed indefinitely.

Even as that thought crossed Adora's mind, she saw the bug lash out with its back leg unexpectedly as Catra was in the midst of dodging its front, and the pronged claws caught her ankles mid-jump and sent her sprawling. The sight of Catra faltering filled Adora with anxiety and rage and she suddenly came to herself in full clarity, exhaustion forgotten. _I have to save her._

And that was a job for She-Ra.

Adora took off from the entrance of the passage onto the hard dirt of the new canyon, lifting her sword as she ran and reciting "_for the honor of Grayskull!" _at the top of her lungs, so that she transformed into her godly half in a flash of golden light midstride. The sudden newness of strength and capability shot through her veins like a drug and Adora—She-Ra—laughed exultantly as she sprinted toward battle, sword at the ready.

Catra, on the other hand, snapped her head up in complete shock even as she scrambled out of the path of another strike from the beast. Her eyes were widened and her brows lowered upon hearing Adora's voice, but the expression was more surprise than hostility. "_Adora?_" the feline said incredulously in a voice rough from exertion. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She-Ra didn't grace her with an answer; only spared her a glance full of calm reassurance before she reached the scene of the fight and launched herself into the air. Catra staggered back out of range of slashing claws and watched with her mouth fallen open as She-Ra turned into a somersault before landing on the bug's back and plunging her sword down into its shell.

Or, it _should _have gone into its shell. Instead, the blade ricocheted off the shiny chitin at an angle, throwing sparks and sending She-Ra off-balance. The warrior teetered and had to leap backward off the beast's back to right herself, landing on the dirt on one knee. She looked up at the beast with consternation on her face.

"Guess I should have told you I already tried that," called Catra snidely. She-Ra shot her a quick look and saw that though her words were harsh, her eyes were trained on the beast and sharp with fear. At the sight, a spark of protectiveness raged up in her chest and She-Ra returned her gaze to the beast with a snarl.

The thing was turning around to face them, awkward on its six spindly legs but not slow. For the first time She-Ra got a glimpse of its face and saw that two beady blue eyes glowed out from a black divot in its carapace; the only feature visible except a round hole of a mouth edged by two evil pincers. It could easily snap up Catra whole; She-Ra a little less easily, but whole all the same.

_Not on my watch _she thought fiercely, and propelled herself toward it again. This time she sidestepped its swipe—those claws were faster than she'd thought—and aimed a slash toward one of its legs. The sword glanced off again but not before taking a chip out of its hard protective armor, which sent the beast screaming and reeling back. When it did, She-Ra pressed the advantage and lunged toward its exposed belly, laying a long, vicious wound with another swing of her sword. Green slime erupted out of the cut and splattered onto She-Ra's hands as she retreated from a retaliatory attack.

As she dropped back, Catra jumped forward, her lips pulled back over her fangs. She-Ra saw a new fire in her eyes and Adora recognized it as the heat of competition—of frustration—that Catra always got when they fought together. It was the frustration of being second, and for once Adora thought that she might know how that felt.

However, she did not condone the way it made Catra reckless, pushing the beast too hard, spending too long among its flailing legs only for an extra few swipes of her claws, putting her in harm's way unnecessarily. As She-Ra watched Catra narrowly rolled out of the way of a stomping appendage and came up much too close to a second one, which almost crushed her.

"Catra!" she called out in what was supposed to be a warning, but came out more like a scolding. It made Catra even more agitated and the catgirl redoubled her efforts, leaping and weaving beneath the beast's unarmored belly, claws flashing.

"I can do this myself, Adora," she growled out between pants, yanking back her claws from the ugly wound she'd just inflicted, spraying the ground in green. She didn't look back at She-Ra. She couldn't. The beast was growing frenzied now and its movements were getting more and more erratic.

"I _know _you can," responded She-Ra impatiently. She saw that as a good time to rush back into the fight, so that at least the bug would have two of them to worry about and half the time to spend on Catra. She brought her sword up in time to deflect a swinging leg and slid back a bit with the force of the hit. She grit her teeth and shoved against the offending leg, which put the creature off-balance enough for Catra to lunge in on the vulnerable side and land a flurry of blows. "I just—" She broke off as she spun to avoid another attack and dropped down low to hack off the claws of the nearest leg, and the beast's shriek would have covered her words anyway.

"—want you to—" She-Ra sprung into a backward roll and the ground where she'd just been standing exploded into chunks of dirt with the beast's pincers jammed in the midst. When she came to her feet again she slashed horizontally at the nearby face and succeeded in blinding one glowing blue eye. "—be careful!"

Catra slid in just in time to rake her claws across the second eye and then hopped away again as the beast bucked and writhed in pain, now sightless. "I'm doing just fine on my own," she said through gritted teeth, watching the creature squirm. "When will you get it through your thick skull that I don't need your help?" With those words she finally turned her glare on She-Ra and Adora had to swallow to hide the catch in her breath.

Undoubtedly, it felt good to fight side by side with Catra again. It was like falling into step with some unheard music that had been thrumming in Adora's head constantly since they'd parted, without a rhythm until now; it was like a cold drink of water after a long time in the desert (and Adora knew what that felt like, now); it was like home.

But at the same time, that look Catra was giving her… That wasn't part of the way things should be. She didn't want Catra to look at her with hate and disgust and resentment, yet all of those feelings were crowded into her jewel eyes. Maybe it was because she was She-Ra. Maybe because She-Ra was still Adora. She couldn't tell which.

"Catra—" she began.

Then the beast struck out, and neither of them were prepared.

It may have been blinded, but its hearing was apparently still unimpaired. It lashed out at the sound of She-Ra's voice but its claws instead came right at Catra, and Catra bristled and tensed but it was too late for her to dodge before the two-pronged blades came swiping across the distance between them and she was standing right in the way and—

Adora was reminded of the sound of raw meat being chopped for dinner.

Catra's shirt and skin and muscle all tore in an instant as the long black claws sliced across them and sent dark blood flinging from their tips.

The feline's face was slack with shock as she staggered from the force of the blow and fell to one knee, shoulders bowed as her arms curled loosely, disbelievingly, around her ruined abdomen. Time seemed to slow down as her eyes trailed up from the wound to Adora's face, wide as saucers. Her mouth hung open.

"A-adora?"

At that single word, something snapped inside Adora. Her vision faded out to white as her ears filled with ringing and she realized they rang with the force of her own mighty, tearing yell—the whole air was filled with it as she turned on the beast to take her revenge.

The Sword of Protection disappeared into a pale blue blur with the speed of its swings as She-Ra struck again and again and again until the creature's chitin was split and its legs were notched and its green innards streaked the desert ground. The bug's shrieks of pain mingled with the shouts of her fury until she could not tell the sounds apart. She did not care. She kept swinging.

The only time Adora paused in her assault was the short moment she took to look at Catra and nodded desperately to the nearest wall of the canyon, where a narrow cave split the face of the rock. _Go, _she tried to say. Catra nodded back, weakly, and began to crawl toward the opening, painfully slow. She left a trail of blood in the dirt behind her. She-Ra moved between her and the bug to protect her escape.

Looking up into the blinded blue eyes of the beast that had just hurt Catra, She-Ra thought that she had never hated a sight more. Adora knew that was not true, because she remembered aiming this same glare of righteous fury at Shadow Weaver, and Hordak, and all those who had hurt Catra in the past. The only difference was that this time, she had the strength to do something about it.

_I don't need to let go,_ Adora thought with the suddenness of realization. _I need to hold on _tighter.

Catra gave her strength, one way or another.

She wasn't about to let that go.

She lunged again at the flailing beetle-beast, sword raised, letting that newfound feeling of strength flood her limbs. She was unstoppable as she laid waste to the creature that had wronged her. She _was _strength; she _was _fury.

_So this is She-Ra, _Adora thought as she braced her muscled legs against the ground and thrust her sword overhead one final time, straight into the bug-beast's heart.

She could feel the thing's powerful pulse through the sword, in her hand, up her arm—and she felt it falter and slow. She felt the consequence of what she'd done. In the next moment, she felt it stop.

Then the bug fell—right on top of her.


	3. Broken

The corpse of the beast twitched in the dirt. Its battered shell shifted in short bursts, as if the nerves beneath were still receiving signals. Its wings sent the sun's rays glaring off them into the canyon wall as they moved.

Or at least, that's how it appeared.

Until the Sword of Protection burst through the iridescent chitin and the blazing form of She-Ra followed it out into the sunlight, panting and coughing on green gore. She braced her hands against either side of the hole she'd just carved and muscled herself out of the body to stand atop it. Relief and the thrill of victory were singing through her, magnified by She-Ra's natural well of power and serenity. She stood there for a moment, a tight smile on her face as she reveled in it, the Sword of Protection light in her palm.

Then she faded back to Adora in a flicker of yellow light, and things didn't feel so great.

She sank to her knees and let herself slide down the curve of the bug-beast's shell to the ground, where her legs buckled. She ended up sitting in a puddle of green slime, able to do nothing but breathe while she waited for the pain to pass. She'd thought that maybe turning into She-Ra would ease some of her discomfort even after the fact, but man, was she mistaken.

Adora leaned over and dry-heaved onto the dirt beside her, which made her head feel as if it was about to explode. _Crap…_she thought weakly. How was she ever going to help Catra when her stomach was turning itself inside out and her limbs were creaking about as much as the entire Whispering Woods and her—

_Catra,_ she thought again, abruptly, the cold fingers of fear clamping around her heart.

She was off the ground in a second and sprinting and staggering across the churned-up earth to the crooked opening where Catra had fled, pain shoved to the back of her mind. Catra was her first priority.

She reached the opening; a crevice in the canyon wall large enough for her to enter only if she angled her shoulders sideways and shuffled along. She did so, and then stumbled against the interior wall when the narrow slot opened up shortly into a small cave.

"Catra?" she called into the darkness of the sheltered area, first in tentative hope, and then in sudden panic when she got no immediate answer— "Catra!"

"H-hey, Adora."

The words gave Adora the tiniest hint of relief, but the tone of her voice dashed it again just as fast. It sounded husky and weak and sent a spike into Adora's heart. The blonde stepped forward, searching for the source of the sound, her heart beating quick, emotions warring between hope and fear. Hope to find Catra relatively safe and whole; fear that she may not. Adora squinted into the dimness of the cave anxiously.

There. The lithe, feline shape of her former friend was huddled in the back of the cave against the red-brown wall, slumped in the shadows. Her arms were clutched round her waist and she was doubled over them and Adora dreaded to discover what lay beneath. Based on what she'd seen of Catra's encounter with the beast, it was bad. Very bad.

But she was alive. She was here, and Adora was too, this time. She could fix this. She could heal this.

The blonde crossed the distance between them in a few steps and slid to her knees beside her injured rival. She dropped the sword and her hands went to hover over Catra's bent form unsurely, searching for the problem to remedy. Questions spilled from her lips at a pace Swift Wind would be jealous of: "Are you okay? How bad is it? What can I do? What are you doing here?"

"Do you have to talk so loud?" Catra spat in lieu of an answer, and the words were sour but Adora had not been away from her so long to forget the sound of her concealed pain.

Adora let out a short sigh of frustration. "Catra, I'm here. Let me help you."

When Catra turned her head to snarl at her threateningly, Adora caught a glimpse for the first time of something that made her blood run cold. Something more wrong than the wound Catra was clutching on her abdomen. Something worse. "Catra?" Adora whispered hoarsely, staring through the shadows at her rival's face. Horror made her reckless, and she reached out and took the other girl's chin in her hand. In spite of the growl that erupted immediately from Catra's throat, Adora tilted the cat's face into the bar of dim light and failed to suppress a gasp at what she saw.

"Catra, what happened to you?" she choked out, blue eyes wide and disbelieving. She had no idea how she hadn't seen that until now.

Catra pulled away sharply, retreating back into the darkness she would have once shunned. _She'd rather face the shadow than me,_ Adora realized with a sick jolt. "Shadow Weaver happened," Catra snapped. "Same as usual."

"She did this to you?" Adora's concern outweighed the warning in the other girl's voice and she shuffled closer on her knees, brows drawn, lips parted. She raised one finger and traced it, light as a breath, along the raw pink scar stretching from Catra's forehead, over her blue eye and down to her chin.

Catra inhaled sharply, shakily. She didn't recoil this time, but instead squeezed her eyes shut against the touch as if it hurt her more than her open wound. Adora wondered if Catra felt the same shock as she did. When was the last time they touched without hurting each other? Without fighting? "No," the catgirl whispered. "That was Hordak…" Her mouth remained open to say more, but then she snapped her teeth together and turned away, breaking contact in more ways than one.

Adora didn't let that sway her. She moved forward again until her knees touched Catra's thigh. "Catra?" she prompted softly, voice full of trepidation and concern.

Catra tensed again but didn't move away. Maybe because her icy barrier was slowly, slowly melting under Adora's warmth. Maybe just because it was too painful—her arms were wrapping tighter around her middle now. Her eyes shifted up from the shadows and met Adora's for the first time and it was agony and relief in the same instance. Seeing the unwavering look in Adora's blue orbs, the catgirl sighed and grumbled, grudgingly, "You know how I beat Shadow Weaver and took her place as Hordak's second-in-command?"

"You _what?"_

"Shhh!" Catra hissed, her ears flattening instantly against the sound, her face screwed up in pain. "Geez, Adora."

Adora grimaced and whispered, "Sorry," in reparation. She was just so shocked! She had seen Catra leading the assault on Bright Moon, but she hadn't thought her former friend had come _that _far since they'd last met. Beating Shadow Weaver? That was…that was Catra's dream come true! _And I wasn't there to see her realize it. _Adora felt another arrow of regret shoot through her chest and clenched her fists by her sides until it faded into a dull ache. _I wasn't there to help her._

Catra either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge the struggle that was evident in her expression. "Anyway, that happened," she continued offhandedly, as if that were not an incredible feat and a victory eighteen years in the making. "Shadow Weaver was my prisoner, but she…" Now Catra's eyes closed again, but not against physical pain. "…she escaped." The furrow between her brows was familiar; a hallmark of her deep-seated fear and hatred for the dark blot on her life that was Shadow Weaver. Adora wanted to reach out and smooth it away with her thumb the way she would have once, too long ago. But she couldn't. She didn't have the right to anymore. And it _hurt. _"Hordak didn't like that," Catra finished, turning away so that her scar disappeared once more into the cover of shadow.

_Hordak didn't like that. _Adora felt her stomach drop at the implication of those words. An image flashed vividly, intrusively behind her eyes: Hordak, standing over Catra with towering anger in those glowing red eyes; Hordak, bearing down on her as she seemed to shrink down, small as a kitten; Hordak, his metal fingers flashing like claws, slashing down towards her face, and— "God, if I ever see his slimy face again I'll—" Adora grit her teeth in sudden rage, biting off the words that she wanted to scream against him; _at _him, in defense of the one who should have been her enemy. "I'm sorry, Catra," she said fiercely into her lap as she bowed her head, "I should have been there. I should have protected you." _I always should have protected you._

Catra didn't let her escape that thought, either. "Yeah, I've heard that one before," she grated.

Adora didn't raise her head—she couldn't—but she could feel the heat of Catra's glare on her. It cut through her like a molten knife, straight to her heart, right where she was vulnerable. _I know, _she felt like saying—sobbing, actually, if the tears coming to her eyes were any hint— _I know. I knew as soon as I left that I should have stayed with you. I should have tried harder for you._

She felt rather than saw Catra shift away from her; shut her out. So much for barriers melting. "Just leave me alone so I can suffer in peace," the feline told her harshly.

"No," Adora replied instantly, raising her head and fixing the girl with a steely gaze filled with tears. "Not again." She wasn't sure if she was speaking more to Catra or more to herself.

Catra deflected, just like she always did. "Ugh, please, your heroism is making me sick."

Before Adora could voice an indignant answer, the feline seized in sudden pain and cried out, curling around her injured abdomen. Adora didn't have to look too closely to see the blood that was oozing around Catra's clawed hands. To see the trailing tatters of her shirt hanging down around her middle. As Catra bent forward into the light, she saw the ashen cast to her skin and the sweat dappling her brow.

It was worse than she'd thought. All thoughts of arguing fled Adora's mind as intense worry shouldered them aside. "Let me try to heal you," she said quickly, reaching out without thinking to grab Catra's shoulders to steady her. "With the sword, I can—"

The feline flinched away from her attempt. "Didn't you hear me?" she panted through her teeth. "_Go away._"

Adora shook her head once. Why was Catra still being so difficult—now, when her life might hang in the balance? Didn't she see she had no other choice? Would she rather _die _than accept help from Adora? "I can see that it's hurting you. Please, just let me—"

"What _is _it with you?" Catra cut her off with what was almost an edge of hysteria to her voice. "You'll walk out of my life and join up with the enemy and leave me to face Shadow Weaver and Hordak alone, but now you feel all bad about it?"

Adora's face twisted in regret. "I told you before. I never wanted to leave _you,_" she insisted.

"Well, you did and now we're here and neither of us can change that. So stop acting like you can," Catra shot back.

"No," Adora argued firmly. She spread her palms in a desperate appeal. "I've wasted so much time fighting you, Catra. I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to break our promise," she said, letting pain lend a sharpness to her voice. She closed one fist in resolution. "It's time I made it up to you."

Catra's lips pinched slightly as if she were holding back some emotion, but her eyes remained hard as ever. "How do I know you and your sparkly little friends aren't just waiting for me to let my guard down?" she challenged. "I'm not about to spend the rest of my life as a prisoner of Bright Moon."

Adora was caught off guard, and the thought of Bow and Glimmer hit her like a blow. She still had no idea if they were okay. She took a deep breath, unwilling to let herself devolve into tears. "My friends…aren't here," she said lowly.

"What, are they dead or something?" demanded Catra with more confusion than malice.

"No!" Adora cried immediately. Then she deflated under the weight of that dreadful possibility. "I…I don't know," she admitted. "We got separated. There was a storm, and—" She raised her eyes warily to Catra's to judge her reaction, expecting the usual bitter contempt she always gave the warriors from Bright Moon, but Catra didn't look angry.

No—she was _yawning._

Adora went from desolate to angry in the blink of an eye. "You are so _irritating!_" she exclaimed through her clenched teeth. Couldn't Catra manage to be at least _bearable _for one moment of her life? Especially when Adora's friends might be dead! Couldn't she show even a speck of sympathy? Of understanding? _Why would she? _the negative half of Adora's brain derided, _She never has with you._

"Just get to the point! Why are you helping me?" Catra snapped, because of course.

_It's always been about her, _that resentful voice sounded again. Then the other half of Adora's consciousness—the forgiving half, the heroic half, the loving half that she tried so hard to preserve—made her say: "Because _I _still care about you!"

For a moment Catra seemed shocked into silence, her jewel eyes wide. Adora could see the dullness in them; the shadow of pain, and she was glad the compassionate side of her had won out.

Then Catra looked away and snorted.

Adora was right back to fuming. Why wouldn't she ever just _listen? _"I'm serious, Catra!" she persisted crossly. "I care about you and nothing can change that. Not even—" Her voice came close to breaking. "—everything that's happened. I want to make things right. With the world. With you." She raised her hands and then let them fall into her lap again, hopeless. It was always hopeless with Catra these days. Adora wished it weren't so. And she let Catra know that, then, with a weak final plea. "We still have a chance," she tried. She could hardly bear to look at her. "Don't we?"

Finally, _finally, _Catra seemed to let a shred of humanity sneak past that hateful façade of hers. Her shoulders were slumped limply, hollowly, and her eyes were fixed on Adora's directly. "I've tried to kill you," she said hoarsely, in the manner of a protest. She shook her wild head slowly and Adora thought it might have been in disbelief. "I—I left you to die."

"Then I guess we're even," Adora said in the same raw tone. All the ache of her regret, her failure, her unsaid words, her missed opportunities weighted that sentence and she hoped that Catra could see it. She hoped that Catra could see the olive branch she was offering; the forgiveness she was begging. And then, just to ease the tension that was threatening to choke her, Adora added with a tentative half-smirk: "Plus, you look stupid rolling around on the floor like that."

Catra rolled her eyes and let out a short groan and it was more of a relief than any salve on a wound. It was familiar. It was comfortable. "Ugh, fine," the feline conceded sourly, but Adora wasn't blind to the real meaning behind that allowance. The hint of understanding. "This better not hurt."

For all the comfort that Catra's grudging acceptance brought her, Adora still had the issue of the catgirl's grave wound to remedy. A pit opened up in her stomach again. "Uhhh pfft, haha, no, it's fine. It's totally fine. You won't feel a thing," she said, chuckling in a totally not reassuring way.

Catra eyed her blankly. "You've never done this before, have you?"

"Eh, no."

"Great," Catra sighed and slouched further against the wall. "I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?" She lifted her hands away from her abdomen slightly and winced at the sight: two long, deep slashes gouged the skin of her stomach crosswise, exposing the thin layers of fat and muscle beneath the surface. They were still welling with blood when left without pressure.

Adora felt the color leave her own face and she tried to choke down the sudden, suffocating wave of worry that hit her. _How is she still even conscious? _she wondered with an edge of panic. _There's so much blood. _Instead she cleared her throat and observed thinly: "That really doesn't look good."

Catra almost chuckled at the understatement, except the act sent her writhing in pain. When she recovered her breath enough to speak she panted, "Yeah, doesn't feel too great either." She levered herself up halfheartedly with her elbow and Adora caught her glance before she managed to hide her suffering. "Let's get this over with."

"Yeah," Adora agreed, her heart twisting for her friend. Adora could fix this, she told herself. She could end the pain. She could do this; she just had to get to the healing part as soon as possible. Assuming she could manage that. "Whoo. All right. Okay. I got this." She took deep breaths, seeking out the Sword of Protection to close her hand around the familiar hilt. With the other she reached for Catra, and the feline let Adora cover her hands with her own over the wound. She inhaled and exhaled the way Light Hope had taught her, in order to improve her focus. To help her channel She-Ra. "Hold on, Catra."

"Just try not to do any more damage," the girl grumbled, but the fear in her voice wasn't so well hidden that Adora missed it.

_Don't worry, Catra, _she added in her head, tenderly. She was concentrating too hard to say it aloud.

Then she entered the sword.

Finding the well of healing energy housed deep within the Sword of Protection was different from accessing the store of power within She-Ra. The divine warrior demanded purpose, commitment, and a healthy supply of existing constitution in order to access her form. One must already be strong in order to use her strength; all of Etheria was safer that way. Healing, however, required directly the opposite. To reach that accumulation of healing power, the wielder of the sword must be at their lowest. They must come to the heart of the sword with nothing but the barest need and no other course of action, humbled, desperate, or the sword would do nothing.

Adora still had trouble fathoming why the sword did not heal Glimmer when she was kidnapped after Princess Prom, but her best guess was that the magical blade simply did not need to. It had perhaps sensed that Glimmer already had the power of the Moonstone and her father Micah on her side, and thus she was destined to be healed without its help. Perhaps still, Glimmer had just possessed so much resolve of her own that the sword allowed her to discover it in her own time.

Really, Adora could not know. But she did know that now, sitting here facing her worst enemy and her best friend as the catgirl bled out onto the sand of a foreign land, she _needed _help. This was a situation that, for once, was out of her grasp to fix on her own. Catra could be mended by nothing but magic.

So Adora supplicated that magic with everything in her. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind into the consciousness of the sword, which was becoming more and more familiar to her the more she trained with Light Hope. She had become accustomed to sending out the probes of her own mind and finding the tickle of warmth that was the Sword of Protection. She knew what it felt like, and all she had to do was give it a glimpse of her raw desperation, her humblest need, her most hopeless dilemma, for it to respond.

The rush of power that flowed into her body when the floodgates opened was like a warm drink after a trek through the Northern Reach, or falling into bed beside Catra after a grueling day of Horde training. It felt like the last piece of a puzzle falling into place. It felt like finding true peace for the very first time in her life.

Adora, eyes still closed, did not notice the glow that began to emanate from the sword and her free hand until Catra gasped. Only then did she let her eyes fly open and her mind resurface from the depths of the sword. Looking down at herself, Adora found that the Sword of Protection in her grip was illuminating the cave with a soft blue light, and her other hand was surrounded by a shifting rainbow aurora where it pressed against Catra's body.

Catra stared at the phenomenon—she was not as used to the quirks of She-Ra and the sword as Adora was—in surprise and tentative hope. She slowly slid her hands out from under Adora's, so that Adora could have full access to her weeping wound. That act of simple trust did not escape Adora's notice, and she raised her eyes to Catra's in quiet acknowledgement. Catra looked back, eyes softening in the swirling rainbow glow. Though Adora didn't expect an outright expression of thanks from her old friend, everything she needed to hear was enclosed in that one glance.

It should have been disconcerting to feel Catra's flesh coming together and smoothing over under her palm. It should have felt disgusting and unnatural, but Adora could find no reaction within her except overwhelming relief. The knot in her own gut began unwind as she pulled Catra back from the brink of disaster or even death. The pounding worry in her head began to dissipate as she watched color return to Catra's tan cheeks and the light return to her eyes. She felt those puzzle pieces coming together again, except this time it wasn't just about the healing. This time it was about them, too.

Their eyes remained locked even after Adora mended the grievous wound and the glow in the cave faded. Her hand lingered on Catra's abdomen, and neither of them were too keen to change that. Adora leaned forward, releasing the Sword of Protection and raising that hand to instead press against Catra's forehead in search of fever. She found none and sighed in relief.

She sat back again reluctantly, her hands falling to her sides, one still covered in blood. "Is that better?" she whispered. It felt like the violation of some unwritten truce to speak too loudly just then.

"Yeah," replied Catra, her voice still hoarse but no longer from pain. Adora saw her throat jump as she swallowed hard and slid her eyes away almost shyly. "Thanks."

Adora couldn't help it; she grinned at that pleasant surprise. "You're welcome," she said warmly, still softly, content in the gratitude she never thought she'd garner from Catra. She tilted her head to draw Catra's gaze back to hers, unwilling to let this moment pass wasted. When they met, Adora was hit with the weight in the feline's two-toned orbs. She could see confusion written among the comfortable clouds of relief and affection. Adora's own brow furrowed and she opened her mouth, to reassure or to question Catra she wasn't yet sure, and—

All at once their little reprieve was broken.

Catra's force captain badge, which still leered from her lapel, suddenly gave a _beep _and flashed red once. Adora's eyes dropped to the badge and widened before she could manage, "What is—?"

She was cut off, not by Catra, but by a pair of voices outside. Familiar voices. Voices that were calling, "Adora!" at the top of their lungs in between exchanges that were indiscernible to Adora's ears, but Catra picked up on easily. As soon as her catlike ears perked up and registered the noises, her face hardened; closed off; withdrew like the last twenty minutes with Adora hadn't even happened.

_No,_ Adora thought sharply, feeling the first tinges of panic crawl up her throat, _please, no. _She couldn't lose Catra again so soon after finding her. After everything they'd been through together—after what they'd _just _been through together—

That couldn't mean nothing, could it?

"Looks like your sparkly little friends are here to save you," Catra observed with an edge to her voice, cocking one ear toward the slit in the cave wall. "I thought they weren't here." Her face was back in the shadows, unreadable.

Looks like it could.

_How can she cut me off again so easily? _Adora wondered, and then an ironic little voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Catra replied: _Years of practice_.

She leaned forward, reaching out as if to keep Catra physically in place, protesting quickly, "They weren't! We were separated."

But Catra didn't hear her. Didn't listen to her. Just like always. She made a noise in her throat that was intended to be a scoff but came out more like a sob. "I should have known. This _was _a trap," she said bitterly. She braced her palms against the floor and in one smooth motion pushed herself up and out of the circle of Adora's pleading arms.

"No, Catra, wait—!" Adora implored from her place still on her knees. Her hand was still covered in Catra's blood as she reached after her rival's retreating back. She thought that was funny, for some reason. The same kind of funny that it was that just moments ago she'd saved Catra's life, and now Catra was acting like she'd been the one to wound her in the first place.

The catgirl turned back just enough to let Adora see her tap her force captain badge with one claw. The surface flashed red again, but this time it continued, at intervals. "I just sent Scorpia my exact location," said Catra lifelessly. "She'll be here soon. Your odds aren't looking too good, Adora."

Adora rose to her feet and followed after Catra, but stopped a foot from her as if an invisible barrier was erected between them. "This isn't a trap! I just wanted to help you," she insisted.

Catra's scoff sounded more under control this time. "Yeah, I've heard that one before."

Hurt shot through Adora's heart. "Please, Catra. I'm telling you the truth," she pressed. "Come back to Bright Moon with me and I'll make sure Queen Angella pardons you. We don't have to be enemies." Her palms were spread in supplication, the blood once again on display.

Catra turned on her abruptly and brought their faces close. "How can you expect me to trust you?" she snarled. Her eyes flickered down to the bloodied hand for an instant before she continued, "The only thing you've ever given me is pain!"

"I just—" Adora blinked, mouth falling open in disbelief. She too looked between Catra and her hand a few times. Was she—was she _serious? _"That's not—" Adora could feel herself breaking apart inside and she wanted to sit down and let her limbs go weak in utter defeat and disappointment, but she couldn't. Not in front of Catra. Not when the other girl would turn it against her just to gain an inch of ground. Instead she shook her head and let her hands fall empty to her sides. Always empty. "How can you say that?" she croaked out past a dry throat. _After everything. _Her eyes flicked between Catra's two, searching, desperate for some hint of a lie. When she found none, she swallowed hard to choke down threatening tears. "You…you really feel that way?"

It was an honest question, but Catra didn't give her an honest answer. Adora didn't know why she'd expected one. Instead, the catgirl turned away.

"I have to go. My ride is here," she mumbled from the shadows.

Adora wanted to reach after her again but she knew it was useless. "Catra, no," she begged, eyes growing moist as she lost the battle against her tears. She couldn't do this again. Not again. Never again.

"Don't try to stop me, Adora."

"You don't have to go with them!" she cried, voice breaking. She had nothing to _say _that would keep Catra here and she knew it, but she would never forgive herself if she didn't _try._ "You don't have to be one of them."

"You _made _me one of them!" Catra hissed back instantly and though she didn't turn, Adora could see her shoulders tense and her mane bristle and her claws come out.

Adora suddenly felt the scars on her back sting as if they were brand new.

"I—" She felt winded, as if she'd just been punched in the gut. "I'm _sorry,_" she confessed, uselessly. "I never wanted this."

Catra's shoulders loosened, ever so slightly. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, but softer. "I guess you can't always get what you want," she murmured. Then she moved again toward the opening in the wall, pausing only briefly at the entrance to rest a hand against the rock, half-turn her head and say, "'Bye, Adora."

Then she was gone.


	4. Whole

"You!" Glimmer stopped short, mouth still hanging open from where she'd been calling Adora's name. Her face morphed from an expression of deep worry to a mask of hard anger in a split second. She was staring across an empty span of desert dirt at a figure she was _not _happy to see again.

"_You!_" that figure shot back in the same tone of indignant outrage, falling into a belligerent stance across from her.

"What are you doing here?" Glimmer snarled, summoning orbs of sparkling pink light to her fists in preparation for a fight. Her eyes remained locked on her unexpected opponent.

Scorpia narrowed her eyes, and the gesture seemed wrong on her face. "Looking for Catra!" she disclosed, always straightforward. She clicked her claws together threateningly. "What are _you _doing here?"

"Looking for Adora," retorted Glimmer.

Glimmer did not expect the genuine laugh that floated from Scorpia's throat, nor the way she suddenly let her guard down and straightened loosely, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "How do you lose an eight-foot-tall glowing princess with a sword?" she snorted.

Glimmer bristled. "She's not—_in princess form_ right now! Probably," she said defensively, hating the way her voice climbed half an octave higher in agitation. "Not after she—" She bit off that thought. "Never mind. Anyway, how do _you_ lose a loud, furry, obnoxious—"

"Guys?" Bow's voice edged into the conversation meekly. Both girls ignored him, busy as they were with trying to glare each other into ashes.

"Hey, watch it!" Scorpia warned, angry again. "That's my wildcat you're talking about."

"That's the point!"

Scorpia pointed menacingly with one big red claw. "You better take that back right now before I pick you up and chuck you into that—"

"Guys!" Bow repeated, louder this time, so that his voice cracked on the word.

"_What!_" Glimmer and Scorpia demanded in unison, whirling on Bow in dangerous impatience.

"Look!" he cried, extending one arm to indicate the other side of the bowl-shaped canyon where they stood, where a dark shape was approaching previously unnoticed. Scorpia whipped around and Glimmer jerked her head up to peer past her intently.

Glimmer recognized the slouched, slinking gait of the approaching figure first, and her face grew even darker. "Catra," she grated out between clenched teeth.

"Catra!" Scorpia echoed brightly, in stark contrast to Glimmer's resentful tone.

"I have a bad feeling about this," murmured Bow low enough that only Glimmer could hear. He eyed the catgirl's unruly form as she crossed the hard-packed dirt toward her compatriot and her enemies.

Glimmer caught his meaning the way she always did; like they had a mental link. "Wherever Catra is…" she said with a suspicious edge to her words.

"…Adora's probably close by," Bow confirmed. He nodded warily toward the approaching Catra. "Let's go."

Glimmer looked even less happy about it than he did, but she sighed through her nose and nodded curtly anyway. They started forward at the same time, heading off Catra's advance before she was able to reach the sanctuary of Scorpia's side. When they stepped into her path, weapons raised, her face morphed instantly into a scowl.

"What do _you _want, Bright Goons?" she spat as viciously as her namesake.

Glimmer clenched her fists in the midst of her two readied pink orbs. "Where's Adora?" she demanded just as harshly.

Catra sneered, and her black claws flashed as they extended from her fingertips. "How should I know?"

"That's a lot of blood for no wound," put in Bow in as fearsome a tone as he could manage, gesturing at Catra's tattered shirt. "I'd say it almost looks like it was _magically_ healed." He pretended to tap his chin in thought and looked pointedly across at Glimmer. "Know anyone who can do something like that?"

"Hmm, oh yeah—_She-Ra,_" Glimmer snarled. She raised her fists higher, preparing for violence. "We know you saw her. So where is she?"

"What's going on here, Wildcat? Is Adora around?" Scorpia asked with her usual sweet concern, glancing unsurely between Catra and the others.

Catra ignored her. She maintained hard eye contact with Glimmer and the air between them fairly smoked from the heat of their hatred. "Why don't you all go wander the island looking for her? I'm sure that'll go swimmingly," she taunted, curling her lip up over one fang in a wicked smirk.

"Why, you—" Glimmer raged, losing her tenuous hold on her cool and lunging forward, glowing fists swinging for the catgirl's face.

"Glimmer!" Bow shouted after her in horror. He reached out a hand to stop her, too late.

Scorpia moved faster than anyone would have thought capable, jumping in front of her former superior with her face pulled into a ferocious scowl. "Don't touch her!" she growled and caught Glimmer's assault on both her chitin-covered forearms. She blinked away the sparkles that scattered from the impact as Glimmer dropped back, breathing heavily from the drain of her anger.

The princess of Bright Moon wasn't deterred that easily. She let out a frustrated yell and sent another pink orb exploding into Scorpia's face, then teleported past her while she was momentarily blinded. Her path to Catra now unobstructed, Glimmer rushed forward, bringing her fist back for a furious uppercut blow as Catra bared her teeth and ducked away and—

A bolt of blue-white light suddenly crashed into the ground between them and exploded, throwing both girls back. Catra skidded on the dirt but kept her balance, and Bow rushed to steady Glimmer as they all looked in the direction of the blast.

As the dust cleared, a figure became distinguishable through the haze, coming toward them. If the blue glow of the sword at its side didn't give away the figure's identity, the voice surely would have when it came echoing across the canyon:

"Stop!"

Bow and Glimmer gasped in shock and great relief. "Adora!" Glimmer shrieked, and freed herself from Bow to run across the remaining distance to Adora, Catra and Scorpia forgotten. Bow followed her at a slightly more reasonable pace and they collided with Adora one after the other in an enthusiastic group hug.

"Bow! Glimmer!" Adora laughed breathlessly, uncaring that her ribs protested in their crushing grip, "I'm so glad you're okay!" She wrapped her own arms around them tightly. Then she looked around and over their shoulders expectantly and her brow furrowed before she asked, "Where's Swift Wind?"

Bow raised his head from her shoulder to say, "He's hurt. But we crash-landed somewhere pretty defensible and he's hiding somewhere safe." His brown eyes held a tinge of worry but they were steady, assured. Adora gave him a curt nod of understanding. Swift Wind was her next most pressing concern, then.

Glimmer still had her face buried in Adora's jacket, which she'd redonned. When she spoke, her voice was shaky. "Adora, we thought you—that you were—well, we were scared that—"

Adora shook her head and moved her hand to Glimmer's shoulder comfortingly, dismissing that thought. "It's okay, Glimmer. I'm okay."

"But what about—" Glimmer raised her head to look over her shoulder and fixed Catra with a withering stare by way of indication.

Catra was standing there with her hands limp at her sides, watching the reunion with an empty look in her jewel eyes. She refused to meet Adora's gaze or even return Glimmer's glare, which was concerning in and of itself. "Come on, Scorpia," she said after a moment, and the bitterness in her voice was sharp as a blade. "Let's just go."

"But wildcat, we _have_ nowhere to go," Scorpia reminded her, which made Catra's expression darken immediately and the catgirl turned away.

"Yes, you do," Adora broke in with sudden conviction, straightening to break gently away from her friends' embrace. When Catra turned back to her in disgust, Adora set her jaw and paced purposefully toward her enemy, extending a hand across the seemingly unfathomable distance between them. Glimmer and Bow watched from behind her with looks of solemn understanding. "Come with me," she said.

Catra snarled. "For the last time—"

"Catra." Adora's voice dropped into the air with the weight of a stone. In the brief pause that followed, she crossed the divide to Catra, and her outstretched hand reached for the feline's.

Catra bristled and jerked away. "Get—"

"Stop," Adora said calmly, firmly. Though she was not She-Ra, she spoke with as much power and authority as her godly counterpart. All traces of her distress and insecurity and helplessness from before were gone. Even the burden of her aches and bruises seemed to be gone; she stood taller. Her eyes were deep as oceans as she held Catra's nervous gaze.

"Wh—?"

Adora lifted one shoulder in a brief shrug. "What's the point anymore, Catra? You don't work for Hordak. You're free of Shadow Weaver. You've gotten your revenge on me. What more do you want?"

The catgirl's expression was on the verge of fear, and her chest rose and fell visibly. "I…I don't know," she admitted. She tried to step back, but Adora pressed her, unraveling Catra's retreat and more.

"If you walk away from here today, where will you go?"

The feline's face twisted into its usual mask of hatred, but it was forced. Her eyes were still flickering between Adora's two, unsure. "As far away from you as possible," she hissed.

"Catra." Adora was the eye of the storm. She could _feel _the weight of her profound calm, as if she were drawing this otherworldly serenity straight from She-Ra, but something told her that she wasn't. This was all hers. This was _her. _She had made a decision within herself; one that lent her the immediate peace of knowing she was right. She had promised herself never to hurt Catra again. It had freed her; buoyed her up from the despair she was so used to feeling when faced with her childhood friend. Now, instead, she felt full. Sure. She felt like she finally knew what she was supposed to do.

Catra was afraid of that look in her eye. It was so foreign to her, she could see it as nothing but a threat. "I don't know, okay?" she exclaimed. "Is that what you want me to say? Fine! I'll say it. I don't know!" She threw out her wiry arms and indicated the wasteland around them. "I have nowhere to go. I have nothing left."

"You have me!" Scorpia piped up from several steps behind.

Catra's lips tightened in irritation. "Except her."

"You're wrong," said Adora evenly. Standing there a step away, looking into the mess of confusion and pain and suspicion and desperation on Catra's face, she wanted nothing but to share this newfound peace with her companion. She wanted to ease those lines of conflict between her brows and at the corners of her mouth and mend the damage done to her catgirl's heart. She wanted to comfort her like they used to for each other, not too long ago.

She moved forward, slowly, so Catra wouldn't spook. She reached out her hands and carefully caught Catra's in them. She watched as the other girl closed her eyes briefly, grimacing like she was fighting off some pain, though she didn't pull away. She didn't pull away even as Adora slid one hand up her arm and brought it instead to the side of her face. "Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other," the blonde whispered so only Catra could hear, brushing her knuckles along the curve of her cheek.

"Adora, don't," Catra said in a broken voice, eyes squeezed tightly shut, even as she leaned into the caress.

Adora had to. She owed Catra that much. She leaned in and touched her brow to Catra's, heard the girl let out a shuddering sigh, felt the breeze on her lips. She could feel the tension singing through the catgirl's body and she wanted nothing more than to coax it away.

"I promise," she breathed.

The weak noise that left Catra's throat was somewhere between a sigh and a whine. "Adora, you can't," she argued, and Adora could hear her trembling as much as she could feel it. It was simply too much for her to accept—not after all the pain and tribulation they'd been through.

Adora tried to convince her anyway. "I do," she murmured. "I promise you." Catra's tail began whipping against her leg at intervals, an unconscious sign of her distress, and it was the last straw for Adora. "Come here," she said, and even she couldn't tell if it was a command or a plea. Whatever it was, it made Catra melt into her arms and in an instant they were embracing, molding together like two halves of the whole that they were, the distance between them shattered. Adora could feel the dampness of the first of Catra's tears against the torn shoulder of her jacket.

Scorpia, Bow, and Glimmer were left to watch with wide eyes and open mouths. Somehow they had drifted nearer each other throughout the exchange, and now stood almost as allies instead of enemies beside each other.

"Wow…" breathed Scorpia, eyes shining, claws folded beneath her chin as she regarded her friend and Adora. "A real bond," she observed, as if confirming it to herself.

Glimmer was less starstruck than the scorpion girl. She leaned toward Bow surreptitiously, brows lowered in incredulity. "Is she serious?" she whispered to him sharply. "Mom would freak if we got back to Bright Moon with a Horde soldier, asking if we could keep her."

Bow slid her a sideways glance. "You realize that's exactly what we did with Adora, right?" he asked slowly.

"_Adora_ didn't almost burn Bright Moon to the ground," Glimmer hissed back.

Bow shrugged as if he didn't fully agree with that statement. "Everyone has good in them, Glimmer," he said sagely, and for a moment the princess was reminded very much of Bow's father George. "Some of them just need help bringing it out."

Glimmer snorted, unconvinced. "I'm pretty sure Catra is the one exception to that rule," she retorted.

"Look," said Bow, motioning toward Catra and Adora in place of an argument, willing Glimmer to listen to their words.

The girls were still standing flush together, heads bowed against one another, lost in their own world. It remained to be seen whether that was a good thing or not, but at least Catra's claws were sheathed.

"Please hear me, Catra," Adora was saying, so softly they almost couldn't make out the words. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for every way I hurt you. That was never what I wanted. I was just trying to do the right thing and…and I let you down instead." She was brushing her thumbs along Catra's cheekbones now, comforting. "But now…we have a second chance. We can start over."

Catra pulled away just enough to shake her head, her eyes downcast in a show of vulnerability Glimmer had never seen before. "Bright Moon will never forgive me for what I did," she said huskily. Did she sound…regretful?

"Then we'll go somewhere else," Adora persisted.

Catra gave a little sigh of frustration, as if to say _it's not that easy._ "What about your little Rebellion?" she asked with barely a hint of her usual contempt.

Adora was silent for a few beats. When she spoke, she did so slowly, thoughtfully. "It's She-Ra's job to keep the whole _planet_ in balance," she mused, as if she were getting an idea. "Maybe…maybe it's time she actually saw what the rest of the planet was like."

Catra raised an eyebrow, but didn't look as if she completely despised the notion. "Like a road trip?" she questioned incredulously.

"Yeah," responded Adora eagerly, picking up momentum as she continued, "and while we're gone, Bow and Glimmer could be working on talking to Queen Angella about pardoning you." She pulled back to look Catra in the face with bright blue irises, and Glimmer had to admit that she was glad to see her friend happy for once.

"And Scorpia?" asked Catra, a little more reluctantly. "She said, uh…" Her eyes flashed to Glimmer briefly and she lowered her voice. "She said that the other princesses never accepted her. That she was an outcast."

A look of familiar determination came over Adora's face, and she grasped Catra's hands in resolution. "Not anymore. Not if She-Ra has anything to say about it," she promised firmly.

This time Catra was the one to stand in silence for a span. Her blue and yellow eyes were traveling between Adora's two searchingly, a furrow between her brow like she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. To be honest, Glimmer really couldn't either. What would it mean for Bright Moon if She-Ra were to spend extended periods of time away? Was it worth risking the Rebellion for Adora to mend this relationship with Catra? For once Glimmer felt like she and Catra were thinking along the same lines.

And they both knew that for Adora, the answer was yes.

"You're serious about this?" Catra asked, still intent on Adora's face.

Adora tugged on Catra's hands, pulling them together once more. "More than anything," she answered lowly. Their faces were close and their eyes were locked and Glimmer could practically feel the tension all the way from where she stood. She wondered uncomfortably whether she should keep watching.

Catra's throat jumped as she swallowed dry. "You…you really want me to—to be with you?" she ventured, barely above a whisper.

"More than anything," Adora repeated in the same tone. Her eyes had gone heavy-lidded and Glimmer could see the flush rising to both their cheeks but couldn't quite tear her gaze away from all this juicy drama. She watched as Adora leaned in slightly and the two brushed noses, and a visible shudder ran down Catra's spine and sent her tail lashing.

"Adora—" The feline gulped again, hands going tight around Adora's anxiously, eyes sliding away for a spit second. _No, you idiot! _Glimmer thought violently, _don't back out now! You're right about to get to the good part! _Glimmer had _not _sat around for the past six months watching Adora pine over her old whatever-Catra-was just for Catra to chicken out!

"Catra," Adora cut her off gently, apparently of the same mind as Glimmer, because the heavy look in her eyes did not change and she leaned in again, this time closer, and—

_Yes! _Glimmer mentally cheered before her rational side could catch up and remind her that she probably shouldn't be shipping her best friend and her worst enemy together. _But just _look _at them!_

Adora's lips were finally pressing against Catra's and at first the catgirl went stiff in surprise (honestly, _why _was she surprised? scoffed Glimmer), but soon enough her mane laid flat again and she leaned into the blonde and returned the kiss like a tidal wave coming to shore: hard and devastating and wild and—

_Oh. Oh, my, _thought Glimmer, feeling her own heart begin to beat a little too hard. This was something she definitely should not be watching.

Adora's fingers pressed into the small of Catra's back, drawing her in closer. Catra reached up and effectively ruined Adora's ponytail with her claws in a matter of seconds, but Adora seemed not to mind because now she was leaning down, moaning softly as her lips parted against Catra's, and—

"So!"

Glimmer jumped as a voice right beside her suddenly broke her focus, and she looked hastily away from the couple, blushing with guilt. She caught Bow's knowing look and stuck her tongue out at him.

Scorpia didn't notice; she was too busy talking. "I was thinking," she said, "if we're gonna be traveling together, which, I mean, seems pretty likely considering the little, ah—_moment _going on over there—" She waggled her eyebrows at Catra and Adora. "—I think we should start things off on the right foot. Well, _re_-start, I guess, because we kinda had a rough first go-round…" She waved one claw in a vague circle, grimacing, before getting back on track: "What I'm trying to say is, sorry for stinging you and kidnapping you both and blowing up that ice princess's castle and punching you in the face and attacking Bright Moon and stealing Entrapta and tormenting Adora and throwing the planet into chaos and all." When she finished, she smiled brightly.

Glimmer was somewhat less enthusiastic. A little pained, in fact. She cast around for a fitting response and couldn't find any. "Um, that's…"

"Perfectly fine! We forgive you," Bow chimed in over her, oblivious to the sour look Glimmer shot him. His smile matched Scorpia's as he sidled up to the Horde officer and clapped her on the shoulder, deliberately avoiding the spikes and all.

"Wow, that's a relief!" Scorpia chirped as she literally sighed in relief. "I really thought you'd, you know, be pretty mad about all that, but I'm so glad you guys are the forgiving types!" Once she got rolling, she was not to be stopped. "I am too. Otherwise I don't think I'd be able to stand Catra in the slightest! But she's the best, honestly. Just a bit of extreme angst and the tendency to cling to undying hatred as her form of emotional management. Nothing a little road trip can't fix. But that's beside the point! You guys seem like really great friends. Do you think we could do some sort of bonding activities to, you know, break the ice?" She clicked her claws together in barely contained excitement.

Glimmer eyed her as if judging if she was really serious. "I'm pretty sure the ice is very much broken already," she said once she'd determined that, yes, Scorpia really did want to do bonding activities.

"That's great news!" Scorpia said, and Glimmer began to fear that the scorpion woman might try to hug her. "I'm going to call you guys the Honorary Super Pal Duo. Because, well, I can't exactly make you _official _Super Pals without getting the thumbs-up from Entrapta, too, and well…" Scorpia scratched the back of her head with one claw.

"Super Pal Duo?" echoed Bow, shooting Glimmer a comically concerned glance that she knew was completely serious. "But we're already in the Best Friend Squad!"

"Oh, no…" Glimmer groaned, knowing exactly what was coming and covering her face with her hands as if to ward it off.

It was no use. Scorpia gasped and turned to Bow with utter admiration in her big dark eyes. "That's so creative! Wait, wait, get this—what if we _combined_ our groups and became the Super Pal Squad?" she practically squealed.

Bow gasped even harder. "Or the Best Pal Trio!" Glimmer could _see _the literal sparkles in his eyes as his mind ran away with this exciting new line of reasoning—his enthusiasm, for once, matched by another.

"Or the Super Friend…"

"Or the…"

Scorpia's voice, and then Bow's too, faded into the back of Glimmer's mind as she slid a look between him and Scorpia and sighed again, but not in despair this time. This time, it was fond and a little bittersweet. Listening to them now, she figured it might do Bow some good to spend time with somebody like Scorpia. They could do nothing but build upon each other's positivity until they were both bursting at the seams with it, and that sounded to Glimmer like something all of them may need.

Unbeknownst to her, Catra and Adora had finally resurfaced from each other and were watching the two also, thinking the exact same thing.

"Looks like they're getting along nicely," said Catra with her usual sarcastic edge, though she leaned her head affectionately against Adora's shoulder at the same time.

Adora hummed her agreement. "I always knew Bow and Scorpia were meant for each other," she said with a chuckle. Then she fell silent and seemed to register Catra against her, and what exactly that meant. One of her hands came up to rest against Catra's back in tender concern. "Are you…okay with this?" she asked tentatively. She didn't indicate anything in particular, but Catra heard the true question behind her words: _Are you okay with _us_?_

"Do I have a choice?" she asked dryly without lifting her head.

She felt Adora's shoulder stiffen beneath her. "What?" the blonde asked a bit shrilly, caught off guard. She made to move back from Catra, to give her space. "Well, if you don't want to, we could always think of something different. Or, or if you just need time to—"

Catra tightened her fingers in Adora's jacket, keeping her in place. "Adora. I'm joking." She smirked into the other girl's shoulder.

"Oh," Adora murmured, and Catra felt the tension gradually ease out of her.

They stood like that for a moment, breathing together, hearts beating _together _for once rather than against each other. Adora's hand was still on her back and the warmth of it trickled through Catra's body and lulled her into a rare sense peace. The feline leaned into the welcome touch with a sigh, feeling her long-held walls begin to weaken and sway. This was better than fighting. This was better than arguing. This was better than lying.

Catra wondered how she had ever convinced herself that she hated Adora.

"Hey," she felt compelled to say abruptly, catching Adora's attention.

"Yeah?" the blonde asked softly. Catra could feel the hum of her voice in her chest.

Catra knew what she wanted to say. It was the same thing she'd wanted to say all along; ever since she and Adora were pulled apart, every time they met as enemies on the field of battle. She knew the words, but now that she had a chance to say them, they stuck in her throat. It had just been so _long _since she spoke to Adora. Since she opened up to anyone. Since she _could _open up to anyone.

She wouldn't let this chance pass her by. Not after everything they'd been through. So she cleared her throat and spoke, and though her voice came out raspy if felt as if it were the rightest thing in the world. "When I said I didn't miss you…" she began, leaning back so that she could look into Adora's eyes—those steady, loving eyes. "That…that was a lie."

She could see Adora's reaction play across her face, clear as day. Confusion and then surprise and then understanding flitted over her features one after the next. Then, to Catra's great annoyance, a smirk lifted her lips and Adora teased, "Well, duh. Who wouldn't miss all this?" She gave herself a once-over and then smugly regarded Catra.

Catra groaned loudly and the first thing to come to mind was _you always have to ruin it!_ but she shoved that thought away with all the force in her and replaced it instead with, _but you always fix it in the end._ Smiling up at Adora, she punched the blonde on the arm and joked, "Never mind. I still hate you."

Adora tilted her head and lowered her eyelids, that smirk still present. "Pretty sure that's a lie too," she said smoothly, so close her breath warmed Catra's lips.

"Mm," breathed Catra, letting herself be affected by Adora, because she could. She was _free _to now. She was free of everything. Her own life was in her hands, for the first time in forever. And she thought that spending it with Adora again, now that they had suffered and learned and grown together, didn't sound so bad. So she leaned against her worst enemy turned best friend and rested her palms on her hips and matched that stupid, sly grin with one of their own. "Don't push it."

Adora laughed and leaned in to kiss her again and Catra thought in utter contentment:

_So this is what being whole feels like._


End file.
